How to Create a Standout Direct Mail Campaign

27 July 2017

Creating a direct mail campaign that grabs a customer’s attention and encourages them to buy from you can be difficult. So, we’ve put together a guide which includes essential steps to help you make a success of your campaign.
For your campaign to gain traction and deliver results, you need to consider a number of factors:

What are your desired outcomes?
As with all marketing campaigns, you need to understand your goals and objectives. What do you want your marketing campaign to achieve? Do you want to promote your brand, a particular product or service? Are you looking to increase traffic to your website? Or, do you want to increase your social media reach? Whatever your goal, make it clear and concise. Document your goal and keep it in mind as you work through the next few steps.

Who is your target audience?
Give thought to the customers you are trying to contact and create a buyer persona. Who is the potential buyer? Do you want to contact existing customers or draw new people to your business? Build an understanding of your audience and consider their needs and interests, their employment, online habits and personal demographics. Compiling this data will help you to cater to your audience and target the right people.

What tone of voice should you use?
Tailor your message to be relevant to your target audience. Change your wording based on your buyer personas and use language that your recipient can relate to. For example, you would use a different tone of voice to target first-time property buyers than you would to reach university taught doctors.

What should your content contain?
You may be aware of the phrase ‘sell the sizzle not the sausage’, a marketing concept that encourages a business to focus on benefits over features. Talk about yourself and your business and you risk focusing too much on the ‘sausage’. Concentrate on your customer’s needs and how your product benefits them and you focus on the ‘sizzle’ – the appealing aspect of your company. When your customers realise the benefits, they will see value in your product and understand why they should purchase it. Ask yourself, how do our products or services make our clients lives easier? What benefits do our products provide? Why should our customers be interested in our services?

AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)
After identifying the benefits, you need to promote them. By using the AIDA model – Attention, Interest, Desire and Action - you will grab your customers attention, interest them and persuade them to take action.

Reach your audience
Once you have perfected the design and content, you need to get it in front of your prospective customers. There are numerous ways of doing this:

Addressed Postcard – Although this is a cheap, cost-effective way of mailing, it often gives the impression of a low-cost high-volume mailout. While this method is probably not suited to a campaign for high-end luxury products and services, it may be ideal for advertising more localised services such as the opening of a new store or handyman services.

Window envelope - A very common format for direct mail. The internal letter is personalised and an accompanying item such as a brochure or exclusive offer can be easily included. Although simple to pull together, you may risk having your materials confused for utility bills, lessening the attention it receives. Having said that, with good graphic design, a window envelope can create a strong and powerful message that intrigues the customer.

Coloured envelope with personalised address in handwritten font - Has a powerful effect on all mail recipients. Who doesn’t enjoy opening a birthday or valentine’s card? A simple envelope with a personalised address in a handwritten style font will make people feel valued and special Adding a personal touch to your envelope can help you to get your message across to your reader very effectively.

Presentation
You only have three seconds to make a great first impression. Whether your direct mail is brightly coloured or understated, it must have presence. Keep your logo and theme consistent with your brand and consider all enveloping options.
If you need help, contact us for advice.

Measure Success
As with all marketing campaigns, you will want to know your return on investment (ROI). Using trackable phone numbers, linking offline to landing pages or using specific promotion codes are some of the ways you can monitor responses. You can then analyse the return against all the associated campaign costs and calculate your ROI.

Repetition
If your ROI is delivering excellent results, repeating the process may be worthwhile. By tweaking the message and targeting a different audience you can multiply your results with each new campaign.

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